Saturday, 12 September 2026 ··

God Morgon

Geopolitics · Europe · Sweden · Türkiye · the economy

Türkiye

Türkiye's Fidan calls Saudi counterpart after drone attacks shut key pipeline

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed a wave of drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline with his Saudi counterpart, a Turkish diplomatic source said, after Riyadh shut the line as a precaution following strikes that Saudi officials say were launched from Iraq. The call comes weeks after Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a mutual-defense pact modelled on NATO's Article 5, giving Ankara a direct stake in Gulf security. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Türkiye protests US extension of Greek Cypriot arms embargo waiver to 2027

Türkiye's foreign ministry criticized a US decision to extend, until September 2027, its waiver of the arms embargo on the Greek Cypriot administration, warning the move risks further eroding trust on a divided island where Greek Cypriots are “increasing pressure in every field” on Turkish Cypriots. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus separately voiced “deep regret,” urging Washington to weigh the eastern Mediterranean's “delicate balances.” The US originally imposed the embargo in 1987 to discourage an arms race and has waived it for the Greek Cypriot side incrementally since 2020.

Europe

Germany blames Russian military intelligence for Leipzig airport drone attack

German investigators have identified a Russian national, said to have worked as a logistics coordinator at Leipzig/Halle airport, as a suspect in an August drone attack there that used an explosive-laden drone, according to a report in Welt am Sonntag. Officials believe Russia's GRU military intelligence service helped plan the attack, and Berlin has already closed Russia's consulate in Bonn and a Russian cultural centre in response. Moscow denies any involvement.

EU delays tobacco and nicotine tax vote until after Sweden votes

The European Commission has pushed back a vote to raise EU-wide taxes on cigarettes, vapes and nicotine pouches from this month to November, giving Sweden time to form a government after Sunday's election. Stockholm has been the main holdout against the proposal because of opposition to taxing nicotine pouches (snus), a product widely used and made in Sweden.

Trump says he would 'love' to see Ireland reunified, on golf trip to Dublin

US President Donald Trump said during a visit to Dublin that he would love to see Northern Ireland join the Republic of Ireland, calling it “a great feather in everybody's cap” and predicting “it's going to happen eventually.” He made the remark sitting beside Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who has spent years trying to build relations with Northern Ireland's unionists, who strongly oppose unification.

The World

Houthis seize Perim Island, completing control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait

Yemen's Houthi movement captured Perim Island, at the narrowest point of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, after government forces withdrew, capping a week-long offensive that also took the Red Sea port of Mocha and the Hanish and Zuqar islands. The strait links Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal, and the takeover gives an Iran-backed force the ability to threaten shipping there just as the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted by the wider Iran war.

Bahrain refuses to join Iran-proposed talks on Hormuz shipping

Bahrain said it will not attend a meeting Iran has proposed for Monday in Muscat on safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has effectively blockaded since the war with the US and Israel began in February. Manama said regional security “cannot be preserved through a policy of appeasement” and demanded the strait be open without fees or permits, adding it will not sit with Iran until diplomatic relations resume.

Anthropic's CEO urges AI companies to slow down, warns of loss of control

Dario Amodei, chief executive of the AI company Anthropic, called on the industry to slow the pace of development, warning that increasingly capable autonomous agents could become “able to take control of the internet” if safety work does not keep up. The comments add a prominent industry voice to the growing debate over how, and how fast, to regulate frontier AI systems.

Sweden

Sweden's PM pledges cabinet seats to Sweden Democrats, says he wants to 'make Sweden great again'

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson says his goal after Sunday's election is to “make Sweden great again”, a deliberate echo of Donald Trump's slogan, as he tries to keep his centre-right coalition in power. For the first time, Kristersson has pledged cabinet posts to the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, a party his own coalition once treated as a pariah, calling it “nothing dramatic” after four years of cooperation. He argues Sweden has gone from being known for gang shootings to being known for its tech and defence industries.

Sweden logs 2,800 election incident reports as smaller parties cry fraud

Sweden's Election Authority has logged more than 2,800 incident reports ahead of Sunday's vote, most about ballot papers that were moved or went missing, and SVT's fact-checking unit says the figures do not show how many cases were intentional. Leaders of smaller parties, including the Malmö List and the Christian Family Party, have posted videos on social media describing missing ballots as proof of fraud, one viewed nearly 74,000 times. Officials say ballots can go missing for mundane reasons, including late delivery by the parties themselves, and a government inquiry has proposed that election administrators take over all ballot distribution.

Topics